Trump weighs four top picks for Supreme Court
Hardiman emerges as dark-horse candidate
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump returned to Washington on Sunday after a weekend weighing the strengths and weakness of four leading candidates for the Supreme Court, mulling the likely response of key senators and his core supporters to each prospect, according to White House officials and Trump advisers involved in the discussions.
Trump remained coy about his final decision, which will be announced at 9 p.m. this evening, but did offer clues about how he sees the four federal judges atop his shortlist: Brett Kavanaugh, Thomas Hardiman, Raymond Kethledge and Amy Coney Barrett.
Hardiman, a runner-up when Trump chose Neil Gorsuch as his high court nominee last year, received a wave of new attention in the weekend discussions, according to two people briefed on the matter.
But White House officials cautioned Sunday that Trump’s informal conversations with golf partners and friends didn’t necessarily hint at whom he would ultimately select for the court.
Trump has recounted how close he came to selecting Hardiman, who was recommended by the president’s sister and sometime confidante, retired federal judge Maryanne Trump Barry. She served with Hardiman on the Pennsylvania-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit.
And Hardiman’s working-class roots — his time driving a taxi during his days as a law student at Georgetown University — have been cited as an attribute, along with his conservative rulings. His boosters, sensing this weekend that Hardiman could be ascending on the president’s list, have been busy making phone calls to friends in Trump’s inner circle.
“He’s got a story that’s compelling beyond the taxicab,” former senator Rick Santorum, R-Pa., a friend of Hardiman’s, said in an interview. “I’m talking to people about his service work with his church in West Virginia and about how he has helped people seeking asylum from communist countries. He speaks Spanish. His wife comes from a Democratic family, and he knows how to engage with all kinds of people, not just Republicans.”
Santorum added that picking Hardiman could help Trump bolster his support in Pennsylvania, a crucial state in his electoral college victory in 2016 and a 2020 battleground.
Previously, the three front-runners for the nomination have been seen as Kavanaugh, who serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit; Michigan’s Kethledge, from the 6th Circuit; and Indiana’s Barrett, from the 7th Circuit. All three candidates remain in contention, but Trump has revived talk of Hardiman because he has not felt compelled, yet, to tap one of them.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., spoke with Trump by phone Friday, according to two Republican officials said.
The officials underscored that McConnell did not push any choice on the president. But, the officials said, McConnell did note that Hardiman and Kethledge could fare well in the Senate because their reputations and records were not as politically charged as others on the president’s nominee shortlist.
Trump is searching for a replacement for Justice Anthony Kennedy.
Democrats, bearish on their chances of stopping any nominee, believe they can put pressure on Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, if the nominee is on record wanting to end Roe. If neither senator breaks, Democrats still believe that they can drive down public support for the nominee by focusing on threats to Roe, gay rights, the ACA and environmental regulations — even in Indiana, North Dakota and West Virginia, ruby-red states whose Democratic senators backed Trump’s first Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch.
The conservative groups doing the most public messaging about the court fight have so far stayed away from discussing any issues.